Meta to release more information about political ad targeting with researchers

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced on Monday that it will soon provide more openness and information to academics about how political and social ads are targeted to users on the network, months before the US midterm elections.

According to Jeff King, the company’s vice president of business integrity, Meta (FB) will begin providing “detailed targeting information for a social issue, electoral, or political ads” to “vetted academic researchers” who have registered to be a part of the company’s research-sharing initiative later this month.

According to the firm, the endeavor, named the Facebook Open Research and Transparency project, was intended to assist qualified academic researchers in studying the influence of social media on society, with precautions implemented to preserve users’ privacy.

Facebook has previously faced internal and external criticism for how highly tailored political ads risk damaging political dialogue.

The information submitted to researchers will include information such as interest categories, which might range from “environmentalism” to “regular travellers,” and will be used to assist tailor each particular ad.

Starting in July, King said, Meta’s publicly available Ad Library will provide a summary of targeting information for political advertising, such as geography, demographics, and interests.

For example, the Ad Library could show that over the last 30 days, a page ran 2,000 ads about social issues, elections or politics, and that 40% of its spend on these ads was targeted to “people who live in Pennsylvania” or “people who are interested in politics.”

“By making advertiser targeting criteria available for analysis and reporting on ads run about social issues, elections and politics, we hope to help people better understand the practices used to reach potential voters on our technologies,” King wrote.

Last year, some researchers at New York University accused Facebook of deplatforming their accounts after they attempted to study the political ads users see on the social network. The company previously said it took action because NYU’s Ad Observatory project studied political ads using “unauthorized means to access and collect data,” violating Facebook’s terms of service.

For the latest Sci-Tech News Follow BOL News on Google News. Read more on Latest Sci-Tech News on oldsite.bolnews.com